a long time. How the old years of joy lodge in you like feveredstars. Worn-wood lodge

in some forest, the present. I am saying there is good

in asking, good in asking again,good in staring and asking. Though I don’t

know. How the dark is made of so many

smudges, how you can call that prayer.

How dark is made of bareness, of

doors, of gold.

Procedures

To my friendswho all livein otherhouses,

I write suicide noteswith a needle dippedin salt water.

I write themon the neon wrappersof lime and rose candies.

Then I tossthem in the air

and let them driftto the dullfloor

and I go outfor groceries.

I cross some foodoff my list

and talkto the cashier.

I go home.

Now I don’twant to die.

The floorwhere I glistenedwith morning sobs

is splendidwith false

petals.

Untitled (Bed with Laptop)

Elsewhere, some later year, I’ll try to be good. Today I don’tcare. I’m mongrel-skinned, bramble-haired, white-seeming,whatever. And I am abed with a headache. I’ve given updrink; I will invent new excesses and name them mine; Irefuse to get the scum of myself off my fingers, jasmine-scum, low-jasmine, too-sugared. I am typing this finger-stuck from myself. That boy kept his fingers in me for years;these are mine. I have smeared them on the keyboard, lily-smeared, you get it. Poets let Apple off easy: it gives themshining silver and a clean page. Capital shines to let us feelartful. Now in my bed reclines the laziest vandal.

Shamala Gallagher is a poet and essayist based in Athens, GA. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Poetry, Poetry Northwest, Bennington Review, Black Warrior Review, The Missouri Review, The Rumpus, The Offing, Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, Bettering American Poetry vol. 2, and elsewhere. She is a Kundiman fellow and a PhD candidate at the University of Georgia.